Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday April 03, 2011 @05:14PM
from the taking-blinded-by-science-literally dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American reports that a newly patented method of non-lethal incapacitation can render an assailant helpless for several minutes by overloading the neural networks connected to the retina with a brief flash of high-intensity light. 'It's the inverse of blindness—the technical term is a loss of contrast sensitivity,' says Todd Eisenberg, the engineer who invented the device. The device consists of a 75-watt lamp, combined with optics that collect and focus the visible light into a targeted beam, which can be aimed like a flashlight to project a controlled beam of white light more than 10 times more intense than an aircraft landing light with a range as far away as 150 feet. Recovery time ranges from 'seconds to 20 minutes,' says Eisenberg. 'It's very analogous to walking from a very bright room into a very dark room.'"

...and I'm sure the long term effects of overloading your sensitive, incredibly difficult and costly to regrow optic nerves to this degree are well known, and this represents no long term danger. right?

no problem, look at how Taser International's massive legal team can get all the maimings and deaths by electrocution swept under the run by buying off judges and doctors and county coroners. The military-industrial complex can steam-roll over peons, it's just operating costs and part of the business plan.

Yes, everyone who died during or shortly after being tasered [and generally more than once] were all wusses. With weak hearts, small bladders, and obviously in the middle of a cocaine high.

Because if it's been established that for most people without a heart condition can take being tasered a single time without lasting affects [which is what Taser International has established].

Of course, in real life, cops:1) have no idea if the person they are tasering has a heart problem2) believe if you can tase them once and they don't die, you can tase them as often and as much as you feel like it

For example, google "vancouver airport taser death" for an example of someone dying because:-he was elderly-he didn't understand english-he didn't comply with instructions in english within 25 seconds [not that he was attacking anybody, he just didn't flop onto the ground immediately]-he was tased 2-4 times [police claim they only got him twice, witnesses say 4, including twice after he was cuffed and on the ground]

Hell, even the "don't tase me bro" guy, who was a dick, got tased multiple times, despite being held face-down on the ground by 4 cops.

At least there is SOME accountability, in that the device supposedly keeps a record of when it has been triggered, and there is something either physically pressed against you or is shot towards you indicating who fired. I can't wait until they perfect the long-distance heat ray, also a 'compliance' device, which burns your flesh from a significant distance. You can just be wandering around in a crowd, and suddenly your skin [including your eyes] is burning. Not just the sensation, but is actually burning. And you have no idea how or why it is happening. And no way to prove afterwards that any specific individual or group did anything to you [other than yes, you appear to have second degree burns on your face and upper body].

Because Taser International is extremely litigious, going so far as to sue the government of B.C. for even studying ESW safety. Because Taser makes more money if the weapons are misused, and microeconomics therefore predicts that they will recommend overuse as a rational agent. Because they aggressively market their weapons as a non-lethal* general-purpose alternative and prove it with bait-and-switch like product demonstrations on physically fit, passive police officers.

There's nothing inherently wrong with tasers, as long as people understand what they are, how they work and how they should be used safely. Taser International is a god-awful company of evil people and their products will continue to be misused as long as they have a say in how they should be.

Tasers are a non-lethal general purpose alternative to going hand to hand with someone or shooting them. The chances of getting hurt, either the officer or the suspect, in a fist fight are much higher than when a taser is used.

Ever seen the "don't tase me bro" video? Tasers are great to replace guns, avoiding actually killing someone. But they should be seen as such, and not as "o, it's not dangerous, let's use the taser instead of getting our hands dirty". Problem is, officers don't seem to get this. The fact that they get their training from the company that makes money from them using the devices, doesn't help.

The problem is that almost every police force in the world uses tasers *improperly*.

This is because of the lobbying, and the lies, all claiming that tasers are not dangerous. As a result, police do not assume there are risks with tasers. They use them indiscriminately, and in fact, many forces use them instead of physical restraint!

Five RCMP officers, and a slightly agitated man... tasered TO DEATH. Hell, one of those officers, with their training, should have been able to 'take down' that man.

I've seen videos of people with traffic violations, who are perhaps a bit 'lippy' to police, being tasered. Absurd. That is the real issue. That is why the public dislikes tasers.

Tasers need to be labelled a dangerous weapon. They should only be used when an officer would normally use a gun. I'll say again, the ONLY time a taser should be used, is when an officer would use a handgun instead.

I'll say again, the ONLY time a taser should be used, is when an officer would use a handgun instead.

I disagree. An officer should ONLY use a handgun when the suspect is pointing a handgun at an innocent person. Tasers need to be more versatile than that. But I do agree with the general principle that Tasers should not be used as frequently as they are. But I would also like to point out that nearly every incident of improper (and often proper on a slow news day) garners tons of media attention, making a lot of people think that Tasers are misused a lot more often than they are. Your average police officer

I'll say again, the ONLY time a taser should be used, is when an officer would use a handgun instead.

I disagree. An officer should ONLY use a handgun when the suspect is pointing a handgun at an innocent person. Tasers need to be more versatile than that. But I do agree with the general principle that Tasers should not be used as frequently as they are. But I would also like to point out that nearly every incident of improper (and often proper on a slow news day) garners tons of media attention, making a lot of people think that Tasers are misused a lot more often than they are. Your average police officer is not ever going to consider wielding his Taser against someone who's being 'lippy' during a traffic stop.

I disagree with your disagreement.;P

Seriously, however, there are reasonable times for an officer to use a gun, outside of what you've listed above. For example, when it is reasonable that the officer was threatened in a manner warranting it. EG.. one officer, two large assailants, refusals to back down by the same assailants, etc.

Or, officer is a 5'2, 100lb woman (we have those here), and she is being approached by a 6'2, 250lb man.

So, when I look at it in that context, I think that tasers should only

Obviously, I posted three links that were published records of that study. I mean an actual paper published in an actual medical journal. All that I can find in Google are the thousands of articles from "the news" about the study that have better PageRank than the actual text of the actual medical paper.

"That's the problem. "The news" broadcasts controversial events and propaganda and anecdotal evidence and videos of stupid hippies yelling at cops because they hate cops and unruly college students refusing to comply with peace officer demands"

You've got to be kidding me. At least here in the US the media is highly biased toward law enforcement, establishment, and the entrenched powers at be. Fox is openly biased and openly broadcasts this sort of propaganda and the other stations like CNN pretend to be fai

When you're a psychotic PCP crazed naked guy running down main street with a samurai sword, and the police chose to tazer you or flash you with a bright light, it's a whole new level of irony that you can then turn around and sue them for any negative side affects of the procedure they chose to use instead of shooting you in the head. I think we might all be better off if the police just went back to the old, much more lethal methods of threat mitigation.

Nice troll. You might be singing a different tune of you'd been an innocent bystander who got tased for "being in the wrong place at the wrong time" (in my case, Seattle 1999 WTO protests). This is a tool for repressing dissent, not for maintaining legitimate law and order.

I'm a middle-aged woman who was leaving a university lecture and had four blocks to walk to get home. They acted like I had a weapon or something, because I had the nerve to ask "how can I get around this, I live one block that way?" instead of just saying, "oh ok officer, I don't really need to go home". So yes, I was most definitely an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time and AFAIC the police had absolutely no excuse to behave as they did. Furthermore, I was far from the only innocent party wronged by Seattle PD that day. Do some reading about it, there's plenty of info online about how poorly the police behaved during that entire event. It was truly shameful, and I'm afraid also quite representative of how US police forces have changed.

It was very obvious to those of living in affected areas during that event that extraordinary measures were taken by the police to ensure they had the excuses necessary to engage in a violent free-for-all. They were macing people who were in cars stuck in traffic! It was the most horrifying thing, I never thought I'd live to see the day that the police in a major US city would be used as a terrorist organization with the sole goal of violently intimidating peaceful dissenters on such a vast scale. This is not the same USA I grew up in...

Troll?
The whole point is that police use tazers as if they were non-lethal, not as a substitute for shooting in the head. As in: "This guy's not enough of a threat to assassinate him, so let's just taze him to get things under control. Oh shit, we just assassinated him."

I think we might all be better off if the police just went back to the old, much more lethal methods of threat mitigation.

I pretty much agree, although probably for different reasons to you. As I mentioned in another post, most arguments in favour of the use of tasers revolve around the assumption that they're being used in place of guns - while that is sometimes true, it is absolutely no always the case. Even the worst officer is going to think twice about putting a bullet in someone, but the relative safety and moderate clinical detachment of using a taser invites them to be used much more freely.

Tasers are often used as a form of punishment with out all that nasty proof and judgement nonsense, rather than the objectives they were purchased for.
BTW my laser pointer has been doing the same thing this "new invention" does for years.

Perhaps, but the cops are in a bad position. They are usually out numbered and have no idea what level of threat you are. I went to college... I did all sorts of stupid shit that got me in trouble all the time. I was charged with bullshit stuff by the police and hated them for it. But the one thing I didn't screw around with was: When I got pulled over, or was at a party that got busted, etc... When the cops showed up and told me to show my hands, I showed my god damned hands. Sure there are examples of abu

here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is extraordinary and prescient and should be mandatory slashdot nerd reading

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States cooperations -- corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

eisenhower, on the flip side, was the guy who put "in god we trust" as the motto of the usa and "under god" into the pledge. boooooo. i understand he was a religious guy, but he completely screwed up the whole separation of church and state. like any man, brilliant and some respects, moron in others

Where have you been? The new hotness is "non lethal weapons" because after all it is hard to beat the shit out of someone later if you kill them up front. Plus it sounds better to the press, you just leave out those pesky blindness and/or electrocution issues.

You see that way you can say "and then they were brought down with a taser/phazelight" and leave off the "and it killed him" and it sounds like you were just trying to stop them! Whereas "and then we whomped the shit out of them with a rubber hose" just doesn't give it the whole "Star Trek" vibe. I'm sure the main street media will be making star wars/ star trek comparisons so the public thinks you are using a phaser on stun not a torture device which looks MUCH better in the papers.

I hope you're being sarcastic. There's no reason to bring race into this.

Who's bringing race into this?

brother (plural brothers or (archaic) brethren)
Noun
1. Son of the same parents as another person.My parents love me and my younger brother equally, even though he is adopted.
2. A male child descended from the same parents.He's not a real brother. He's adopted.
3. A male having at least one parent in common with another (see half-brother, stepbrother).
4. A male fellow member of a religious community or church.
5. Someone who is a peer, whether male or female.

Only valid on the assumption that a gun would have been used in place of the Taser. Unless you're telling me that the police would shoot someone for refusing to promptly follow an order (while posing no direct threat), that's demonstrably not the case.

I don't actually object to tasers per se, but I do object to police guidelines which allow their use against people who pose no threat to either the officers or the public around them. Most of the pro-taser arguments revolve around their use as a defensive weapon, but their actual use is not limited strictly to defence. I know such policies would be imperfectly applied, but it would still be better than the current system in which they can be legitimately used as immediate 'punishment' for failing to comply with police commands.

Police officers should just be held to the same laws as everyone else.

An emphatic NO to that. Knowing the law is THEIR job, not mine, so if I do some minor screwup, maybe I can get a slap on the wrist, but they shouldn't. And a lot more important, if you do something to a cop, you get added sentencing versus doing the same thing to Joe Blow. So a cop doing something illegal to you should get added sentencing. Seems only fair to me.

Wait a minute, I'm pretty sure there's been a lot more pure evil in the past 100 years coming out of Europe, Asia, and Africa than America. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, christ, do I need to go on? Compared to all that, AMERICA is the bad guy? So.. how about we kill like 25 million people today, does that mean we get a pass in your book for it 10 years from now? No? Hmm.

...and what about the "liabilities" that come with using lethal force (aka your sidearm) to incapacitate a criminal? Isn't this much better than say, firing off a round into someones leg?

The only thing that worries me is what the target may do when all of a sudden he's disoriented. What if his gun is drawn at the officers (or civilians) when he's disabled? TFA says most victims "freeze", but I don't see how inverse-of-blinding light would make your entire body stop working. What if the victim starts bli

The problem with all this kind of technology is that edge cases are ignored because it's viewed as always superior to existing options. It's a logical fallacy that's been reinforced by an ignorant judiciary and public officials that don't understand statistics, science, medicine, technology, etc.
How well will a person who's eyes have been dilated at the doctor's fare against this? How about people that are prone to seizures or taking certain medications that increase light sensitivity? How about people pr

...and I'm sure the long term effects of overloading your sensitive, incredibly difficult and costly to regrow optic nerves to this degree are well known, and this represents no long term danger. right?

I'd rather go blind the traditional way - standing too close to the TV and touching myself (apparently).

I remember advertisements in magazines in the years before Tasers for a magic-sounding non-lethal weapon that would instantly incapacitate an attacker. The ads were vague about how the device worked, but I recall hearing (reading?) somewhere that it was a super-bright flashlight. Perhaps a strobe.

Yeah, the one's I've seen in the past were based on strobing at a specific frequency that made you very disoriented and nauseous. Probably more dangerous for epileptics but they also wore off more quickly. I'd be worried about permanent damage from something that takes 20 minutes to regain your vision.

In "Debt of Honor", Clark and Chavez blind the pilots of a Japanese AWACS. They also use it several times to incapacitate guards. Their device was a 1kW light flash though, so I suppose this new invention is a bit more efficient.

In "Debt of Honor", Clark and Chavez blind the pilots of a Japanese AWACS. They also use it several times to incapacitate guards. Their device was a 1kW light flash though, so I suppose this new invention is a bit more efficient.

Has anyone checked Clancy's recent novels to see how their retinas look like after all this time ?

Probably a little different. The reason everyone put on goggles in the old newsreels was that the UV from the explosion would blind you. The visible light probably wouldn't do you much good either, but the UV was the real killer.

The summary and article seem to be implying this is more clever than it is.

overloading the neural networks connected to the retina with a brief flash of high-intensity light. 'It's the inverse of blindness

No, I think it's just blindness, albeit temporary. You're not really "overloading the neural networks", you're just flashing a bright light in someone's eyes. Unless you're doing something very clever with that flash of light that makes it more effective than just a normal bright light...

I wonder if its been patented? Rednecks have been shooting deer at night from the back of pickup trucks by pointing a floodlight at the deer, which makes it freeze, since... I donno probably about one night after the floodlight and/or pickup truck was invented. Probably the part he is patenting is doing this process while NOT drinking beer and NOT listening to country music.

In protest about people whining about tasers, I propose we take tasers, batons and bean bags away from the police. Also since cops don't wear running shoes, and they're given guns, the guns should be used instead of chasing. So any one resisting or trying to run away, you will be shot and you will be killed.

The issue with tasers is not that they exist, but that they are misused -- Taser International has misled police and the public to believe that tasers are more safe than they really are, so police will happily overuse them without making as many judgement calls as if they used live weapons. While trying to ban tasers is misguided, trying to educate people about them (especially when people with financial stakes try as hard as they can to obscure the information) is not.

Shooting someone for running away or resisting arrest is the stupidest suggestion I've ever heard. Spend a little less time watching Cops and read more about abuse of power, wrongful arrest, and unarmed shootings by police because of "self-defense".

Giving any people that sort of power will guarantee a rash of "necessary force". Dead people can't argue.

The British SAS and various other counter-terrorist/hostage rescuers and other Secret Squirrels have been using these for years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade [wikipedia.org] . When storming some nasty hornet's nest, toss in a couple of these in first. A device that causes permanent blindness is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.

But this thingy has a longer range, so that you do not have to be in throwing range. But I am afraid that these devices will fall into the wrong hands . . . like the lasers that c

So for this to be effective, you have to aim fairly precisely at someone's eyeball. Presuming they aren't cooperating by standing stock-still with their eyes open and looking at you, the chances of managing a "hit" before they do whatever it is you would prefer they didn't must be quite small.

Although the article doesn't say: the assumption is that this would be a hand-held weapon, much like a taser or revolver, so the operator would need even more luck at hitting their intended target than with (say) a vehicle mounted or sandbagged device. Also, those configurations wouldn't have the flexibility to "control" multiple people in a fast developing situation.

If this ever gets into development, I think I'd invest in a pair of laser-protection goggles and a large mirror if i ever felt tempted to put myself in a location with somehting like this would be used against me.

So for this to be effective, you have to aim fairly precisely at someone's eyeball. Presuming they aren't cooperating by standing stock-still with their eyes open and looking at you, the chances of managing a "hit" before they do whatever it is you would prefer they didn't must be quite small.

The angular diameter of the full moon (or the sun) is just about half that, and I think you'll find that is plenty large to paint a face quickly and easily.

For an example of how this works, go into a mostly dark room with a camera. Have a look around. Turn on the camera, look straight into the flash as you fire it. Have a look around again.... Your wide-open pupils just let the full force of the flash in before you could blink, every receptor on your retina just fired, and it's going to be a few minutes before you can see anything again.

With a high enough power light source, this works just fine in daylight. I know this because I've flashed myself with a MIG welder - It was just a brief flash as I flicked the trigger at an inopportune moment, but the center of my vision was completely blank for several minutes. Simply turning off the machine and finding a safe place to sit down to wait for my vision to return was a challenge. I would have been screwed in a melee.

Anyway, no, goggles won't save you. If it's white light, you can't filter a narrow band like laser goggles. When welding with a shade 10 filter, when the arc is on, you can see what you're working on OK, but the arc itself is just white, completely clipping at the top of your eyes' sensitivity. When you turn the arc off, you're blind if you're indoors unless you have a 150 watt light inches away from what you're looking at. Outdoors you can just barely see what's going on, but at many angles the reflections of light leaking in from behind you overwhelm your forward vision (like with glossy screen laptops used outdoors, but worse). Using those kind of lenses will leave you blind anyway - they wouldn't need to flash you. Anything less and you'll still be vulnerable to the flash.

Oh, it will just be used on assailants. Who are up to 150 feet away. Well, I definitely trust that. I mean, nobody would ever use this for crowd control. Or robbery. Or in traffic... oh man, this would be *awesome* for tail gaters! Sorry, where was I... oh yeah, nope, this will be the first ever weapon that can only be used for good!

The police will manufacture a way and reason to test this puppy out there without any doubt. Just like they did in Toronto when they gave the police ample opportunity to train in using all the new toys they bought them - without any justifiable reasons required.

We may say we support democracy here in North America (I am Canadian) but we don't really, because when people go out in the streets to protest and make their opinion known, we arrest them without a warrant and treat them worse that we are allowed to

Thank god nobody has thought to invent something to counter this. Something like a set of dark lenses that could fit in front of the human eye. Or perhaps even lenses that could darken in a tiny fraction of a second, or allow only light of a certain polarity to enter.

You might even want to attach a catchy name to such devices. Something like "Polaroid" or "Rayban".

Well, this is a patent for a physical machine, so the patent is probably on the mechanism they used to concentrate the light, rather than the idea "shine light in people's eyes to stun them." "Device" patents tend to be a lot more reasonable than software patents.

countries in africa, asia and the middle east do use their lethal weapons 'at home' to preserve the power of the current regime and have done for a long time. In spite of the success of some of these 'revolutions' in recent months (Egypt, Tunisia) I can't see that changing much.

They do now. They used to have no use for non-lethal weapons, but now they have to do a lot of peacekeeping in places like Iraq and Afganistan, which involves angry mobs from turning into a full-blown riot. You can't easily kill them, because then everyone hates you more, so a nonlethal means of crowd dispersal would be useful.

From wikipedia:"A stun grenade, also known as a flashbang, is a non-lethal weapon. The first devices like this were created in the 1960s at the order of the British Special Air Service as an incapacitant.

These grenades are designed to temporarily neutralize the combat effectiveness of enemies by disorienting their senses. The flash of light momentarily activates all light sensitive cells in the eye, making vision impossible for approximately five seconds until the eye restores its

A laser is very concentrated light, further focused by the eye, which is why it will cause burning damage to the retina.

This is similar to the flash-bang grenade. A very strong difuse source of light will drain your retina of the signal substance it uses to detect light, and it takes the body considerable time to produce new signal substance. Fire a camera flash in your own face and you can experience a mild form of the effect.

Thereby not said anything about the viability of the product. I doubt something that can be stopped with sunglasses will replace tasers any time soon.

Coherent light is focused to a particularly small area on the retina, which increases its local intensity by orders of magnitude. This thing is just bright. Both lasers and extremely bright light can permanently damage your eye, but lasers do it with far less power and far more quickly.

In the book, they were just using a generic portable spotlight, rated at a couple million candle power, with a UV filter to prevent permanent damage. Of course that filter was for naught when the people you temporarily blind are pilots on final approach.

Any modern military can easily trample any insurrection if the gloves are allowed to come off. Just look at Libya before the west started air strikes or Iran any time in the past decade when they've had large protests.

The Libyan rebels would have been dead in a trench by now if not for NATO airstrikes.